Swashbuckling

Origin of: Swashbuckling

Swashbuckling

These days, it is an adjective mostly used to describe a genre of action-adventure films involving period costume and sword fighting. The films of Douglas Fairbanks during 1920-1929 epitomised the genre, while those of Errol Flynn and Stewart Granger continued the tradition. Back in the 16th century, it was more of a derogatory term, where a swashbuckler was a swaggering, uncouth ruffian, quick to draw his sword, deriving from ‘swash’ an echoic word simulating the sound of a sword ‘swashing’ through the air, and ‘buckler’ an Old English word for a shield. Thus, originally, a swashbuckler would have been armed with a sword and shield.